ted rall is walking that fine line

[I know others have commented on Rall's column already, but they better recognize that Ted Rall is my bitch!]

[ed note: Some people are having trouble getting through to the Yahoo link. Perhaps they took it down? Anyhow, you can still find the column in question at Rall's place]

Some people will read Ted's words and assume it is satire. Some will read it and think that he is condoning the killing of American soldiers. Some will read it and see the words "America, blame yourself!" written between the lines.

In a way, they will all be right.

Rall has gone so far left that if he did attempt satire, it would be hard to tell the difference between that and his real beliefs. In a way, Ted is almost satirizing himself here.

Killing soldiers? This wouldn't be the first time ol' Teddy has done that. After all, this is the guy who calls people in the armed forces baby killers.

The self-blame of America is pretty evident, especially in the last line. Rall thinks that the more we corner the terrorists in Iraq, the more civilians will turn against us.

Before we figure out what Rall really means by this whole thing, we need to ask why. Why would he write such a screed on Veteran's Day, of all days.

Simply put, Ted Rall is a despicable human being. This observance comes not just from his views on America and his views on the war, but from things that have nothing to do with politics. Rall is a self-centered, delusional man who is slowly walking that fine line between hateful columnist and pure psychosis. The man is so full of hatred, vitriol and self-loathing that it is all beginning to seep into his columns so much that they have become almost unreadable. I know of some liberals who read Rall's recent stuff and cringe.

This column - Why We Fight - is the creepiest thing Ted has put in print since his fire widows strip. Here, he takes on the voice of an Iraqi resistance fighter, beckoning others to join in and terrorize coalition troops in Iraq.

You are joining a broad and diverse coalition dedicated to one principle: Iraq for Iraqis. Our leaders include generals of President Saddam Hussein's secular government as well as fundamentalist Islamists. We are Sunni and Shia, Iraqi and foreign, Arab and Kurdish. Though we differ on what kind of future our country should have after liberation and many of us suffered under Saddam, we are fighting side by side because there is no dignity under the brutal and oppressive jackboot of the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority...

Don't bother to tell me that I read Rall's column wrong, that this was satire or tongue in cheek or parody or whatever word you want to use to defend him; based on Rall's past columns and comics, one can safely assume that Ted wrote this from his bitter heart.

Look at that paragraph I quoted. Does Rall really believe this? Does he honestly think that most Iraqis would rather live under Saddam than make progress towards demoracy with help from the U.S.? He is taking the issues of a small percentage of Iraqis - those corrupt individuals who flourished under Saddam's totalitarian regime - and projecting their ideals onto the rest of the Iraqi citizens.

Perhaps when Ted makes his trip to Iraq he can visit the schools that have been opened. He can talk to the teachers who are already making more money than they did under Saddam. He can visit the kids who are getting more health care in one week than they got their whole lives before the "occupation" of their country.

But no, Ted only sees what he wants to see and hears what he wants to hear. Unfortunately, the only thing Rall really wants is for George W. Bush to fail miserably, even if that comes at the expense of Iraqi freedom or the lives of soldiers. He justifies his wish of destruction for the coalition forces by claiming that the terrorists who are killing coalition troops are just poor, oppressed, ordinary citizens who are fighting back against the evil U.S. soldiers who are raping and pillaging and stealing their women.

Rall basically admits that the resistance uprising is made up of not just Iraqis, but terrorists from all different areas. But that doesn't bother Rall, who believes that any terrorist who strikes at American soldiers is doing the world a favor.

We regret their deaths, but we must continue to kill them until the last one has gone home to America.

That's what Rall - in the guise of a resistance fighter - says about U.S. soldiers.

You will never, ever convince me that Rall didn't mean every word of what he has written. One only needs to look at his past writings to know that the words in this column - words that Rall the coward writes in the guise of someone else, in what appears to be a pre-emptive alibi - ring true for the real Rall and not this semi-fictional character he has used to make his point.

There are many liberal columnists and cartoonists I disagree with. I don't think they are bad people, I just think their ideas are misguided - as I'm sure they think mine are.

Rall is a of a different breed. He is rotten through and through. There is not one redeeming characteristic of this man that I can think of. Go ahead, educate yourself. Do a little Googling, a little research. Rall is more than his anti-U.S. screeds. He is a hateful, loathesome, bitter, self-indulgent, delusional, vindictive man.

Please, do go to Iraq Ted. Go join those resistance forces. Take an AK-47 and put your bravado where your pen is. I can't promise the results will be pretty, but I can promise that I won't write a column calling on soldiers to kill you. And that's the difference between a you and I, Ted. It's called human decency. Look into it.

After 9/11, I was roundly criticized for daring to suggest that there were some people in America who wanted the terrorists to win. But if you read Ted Rall and others, there can be no mistake. There is a virulent strain of anti-Americanism in this country. Some, like Rall, are now urging the murder of American troops in defense of Islamist terrorists and the acolytes of one of the most brutal dictators in history. Ann Coulter couldn't invent something this depraved...

Yep.

[Update 2: A couple of people emailed asking for my previous Rall posts. I never set up categories, but you can go here and just do a CTRL-F for Rall. 99% of the posts have his name in the title. See also, bitchslap.]

» Ted Rall from Wunderkinder
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» Gorgeous partisanship redux from One Fine Jay
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» You call this the "highlight" of my day? from Classical Values
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» Ted Rall, Trent Lott and Other Unoriginal Sinners from Demosophia
Well, I don't see a correction coming from Andrew Sullivan about his post on Ted Rall's Veteran's Day "Why We Fight" article. Nor do I see anyone else changing their minds or issuing retractions, though it certainly looked to me [Read More]

A fine line between insane and psychotic?
Coke and crack?
Trotsky and Stalin?
Sedition and treason?

BTW, Joseph's right. They've only had about six months exposure to benign occupation (after 30+ years of decidedly non-benign oppression). It is fascinating, though, how many of those fighting are not Iraqi.

I had not read Ted before this column - I came across it on another site and I had to re-read it to verify that I was really reading those words, in that order, on that day. I am still a bit stunned that anyone would think this way and then write it and be considered a popular writer that apparently quite a few people read and generally agree with - blows my mind. I'm actually still in shock.

Rall is lower than the lowest scum in the deepest pond. He is worth less than the crust under my mother-in-law's toenails. Tar-n-feathering would be too good for him. The Iron maiden would be too quick. I say send him a one way ticket to Iraq, Let's see how long he lasts. I just found out that a young friend of ours ships out for Iraq on saturday, if anything happens to him I'm holding this scum-sucking traitor personally responsible. Say a prayer for all of our young men and women doing their jobs, that they get it done right, and get home safely, in spite of the efforts of bastards like Rall.

Please let your cell leader know if you require additional materiel for use against the journalists. At an average of 35 attacks each day, an hour does not pass without a journalist coming under fire somewhere in Iraq. Ultimately the American public will pressure their leaders to withdraw their harried journalists from our country.

It is no easy thing to shoot or blow up young men and women because they carry microphones and laptop PCs. Indeed, the journalists are themselves oppressed members of America's vast drinking class....

The ultimate insult is how Rall coopted the title of Frank Capra's Why We Fight films explaining why we needed to fight the Nazis. Considering how the Ba'athist Party was inspired by the Nazi Party, identifying Bush and Hitler—I can't go on. Somebody put Rall out of my misery.

I don't know how you do it Michele. Reading Rall's columns literally makes me a little bit physically ill. It's just so disturbing and depressing to think that there are people who actually think that way. I don't think that I could dive into the sewers of Indymedia and Rall the way you do and return with my sanity and health intact. I applaud you for being able to do it and for providing this service.

Canada, declaring the USA to be suffering under a tyrant-president determined to undermine centuries-long civil liberty while waging war on foreign lands that pose no imminent threat to homeland security, invades America killing innocent civilians, disrupting public services and failing to provide the least possible of medical, food, water service, do nothing for thousands of unemployed, etc.

Protest, opposition, resistance is labeled terrorism. Defending one's country against invaders = terrorism. huh? No terrorists in the country, no connection with terroist groups elsewhere, no training camps for terrorists groups, no weapons, no nuclear weapons, no ability even to wage war. Yet resistance to invading forces is called terrorism.

Helen, if that's what passes for sophisticated analysis on your block, then I'm not surprised you're defending Ted Rall.

You and Ted share a common fantasy land, born of what inner impulses I would rather not speculate.

Let me guess- you can see the truth as plain as day while the rest of us are blind to it. Hmmm...

Ted is anti-American. He wants us to lose. He hates this country, while claiming to be the one who really loves it. He holds up the sacrifices and deaths of our military people as a straw man, which he then kicks in the crotch and burns for his own amusement.

Follow false prophets at your own peril, Helen. They give you the illusion of power by telling you that you are among the chosen who really gets it. Meanwhile, you are just grist for their mill, and one of history's patsies.

The funny thing is, some people are trying to defend Rall by claiming he's trying to show how an Iraqi resistance fighter might be thinking. When did Baathists, and foreign fanatics show any concern or sorrow for their "poor, innocent" enemies?

Helen: What's wrong with your little picture? Other than it not matching reality at all?

Canada, declaring the USA to be suffering under a tyrant-president determined to undermine centuries-long civil liberty while waging war on foreign lands that pose no imminent threat to homeland security, invades America killing innocent civilians, disrupting public services and failing to provide the least possible of medical, food, water service, do nothing for thousands of unemployed, etc.

Well, we'd kick their asses and take their hockey sticks. Seriously, if the US was as bad as Iraq under Saddam, methinks I'd be BEGGING someone, anyone, to invade.

As for the "disrupting public services" bit, you might want to stop pretending that Iraq was in good shape before the invasion. It wasn't.

Helen is just brainwashed. She can't help what she says, she was probably raised by LLL parents and is now in college and being taught by LLL profs. She just doesn't know any better.

But that's just my take.

Rall on the other hand is another story. He's written cruddy after cruddy article before, but this one takes the cake. I can't even think of the proper words to describe the MFer.

I can say I am ashamed he's an American who can write sh*t like this. Too bad we can't ban him from the US and send him to Iraq? Perhaps put him on assignment as an "Iraqi Freedom fighter?" A real one?

of course you find it creepy, you don't want to admit the truth. that maybe America ISN'T right ALL the time. maybe they DO bring troubles upon themselves. maybe the world ISN'T jealous and they only want our corporate money grubbers out of their back yards.
why not just admit you are blinded by flag waving? much like the nazi's were blinded by the swastika or the russians were with sovietism? it's nothing to be ashamed of, just admit it so you can get help. (haha, just a 1/2 joke since i really don't know you very well)

i would like to see you and your family love an invading country and then wave their flag after 10,000 of your friends, family, neighbours and country-men (say in an area of ohhhh... california) get killed in something called OPERATION:AMERICAN FREEDOM. and the number keeps growing every day in nearly the teens.
did you believe all the reasons for this war?
every reason the bush admin put forward was contridicted and proven to be false BEFORE the war. and yet American turned against American when these facts were pointed out.
WofMD (which were dozens of lies in themselves from yellow cake to aluminum rods to chemical trucks to quoting a report from the IAEA that never existed - and still doesn't exist, on and on and on)
that he was capable of launching these weapons at any time (despite the fact that in early 2001 colin powel had already told the world that saddam was no longer a threat to his neighbours or the world)
saddam had a hand in 9-11 (even though he and bin lauden hated each other)
that walking away from diplomatic talks completely and just attacking with no real basis in fact will NOT make more terrorists that hate us. after all who in their right mind would hate being lied to? Americans don't seem to.
that it's our patriotic duty to support the troops even if you don't believe in the war (even though bush himself has not only refused to raise the pay to the family of soldiers killed from $6000 to $10,000 but he has also cut pay and cut benefits to the soldiers still fighting over there. i support the troops too... just not as much as their pall-bearers do)
all of these lies were told by the way by a president who can't even remember how he found out about the 9-11 attacks (he thinks he watched the first plane hit the towers live on tv! in the hallway of an elementary school!!!!)

" Perhaps when Ted makes his trip to Iraq he can visit the schools that have been opened. He can talk to the teachers who are already making more money than they did under Saddam. He can visit the kids who are getting more health care in one week than they got their whole lives before the "occupation" of their country. "

or perhaps you can visit the schools that haliburton were suppose to fix and didn't but still took the money for after claiming they did, making the schools fix things themselves and delaying their opening for another week or month.
or perhaps when you're there you can visit the graves of the children who are still dying from cross fire, unexploded landmines and bombs. or talk to the children who have lost their parents and grand parents.
or perhaps you can bring some of that health care back to those of us who can't afford it over here.
if you could do that it'd be much appreciated, thanks :)

and by the way this whole "anti-american" crap that the right spreads whenever someone points out flaws of teh bus hadmin or of America's collective beliefs is akin to soviet style propaganda.
"if you dont like america then move!" is the reborn creedo of the right wing ditto heads.
but let me ask you this... if you have the best toilet in the world... and it backs up... do you start peeing in the sink? or crapping in the bath tub? "shut up!!! it's the best toilet in the world!!! they don't make none no better! if'n you don't like sitting on the best toilet in the world, even though it's spilling over with all my body wastes then GET OUT AH MAH HOUSE!!!!"

no! you FIX the PROBLEM. get it? ya dig? just because america is a great country and better than a lot of other countries doesn't mean it can't get better and that it still doesn't have problems to fix. that doesn't make it bad. it just means we need to fix the leaks before we start to sink. imagine a day when people lose their jobs enmasse, or people can't afford health care, or lowest education, or if we have the lowest average life span amongst all the civilized industrial nations even thoug hwe have corporate health care and smoke the least and... oops! those have already happened, haven't they? sorry, sometimes i can't wrap my mind around the truth either.

next time someone still complains about clinton, or about the democrats, or about how these liberal hollywood types should shut up and just perform (even though it's ok for ronald reagan and schwarzenegger to do politics) just tell them "if you don't like freedom and democracy... then move."

plus who would vote for bush and schwarzenegger on economic issues when their own businesses have gone bankrupt? (bush's went bankrupt twice and i don't see planet hollywood in the mall of america anymore), hmmmm? i mean other than brain washed right wing drones of the status quo that is. other then THOSE types, who would vote for people based on what they do worst? it makes no sense at all.

YEAH! TED IS DEAD RIGHT! ALL AMERICANS SHOULD BE MURDERED QUICKLY TO FREE THE WORLD FROM YOUR SCUM. HE'S THE ONLY AMERICAN THAT DESERVES THE KISS OF PEACE FROM US!, BECAUSE NOT EVEN THOSE HYPOCRITES THAT OPPOSE THE CRUZADE AGAINST ISLAM BUT DON'T ASK FOR THE MASS DESTRUCTION OF THEIR COUNTRYPEOPLE QUALIFY FOR OUR PEACE. THEY WILL ALSO BE DESTROYED, DAMN HYPOCRITES, ALL AMERICAN DOGS HAVE TO BE BANISH FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH, EXCEPT FOR TED AND A FEW OTHERS THAT ARE REALLY ABIDING BY ALLAH'S WILL FOR TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF EVERY GOD DAMN AMERICAN ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. WE HATE YOUR ROTTEN GUTS, YOU SCUM, YOU DIRT, YOU PIECE OF SHIT AMERICANS. DIE YOU ALL KNOW!!!!!! WE HATE YOUUUUUUUU.

I love how Rall brays non-stop about "oil wars," yet on his weblog insists on "round-trip first class airfare" to any speaking engagements he's lucky enough to land. Michele is right on the money with Rall being the Coulter of the right -- neither one seems capable of nuanced commentary and are better left ignored. Coulter's traitor-baiting polemics are as hyperbolic and disgraceful as anything Rall has ever penned. Can we please now acknowledge that he is a prize asshole?

of course you find it creepy, you don't want to admit the truth. that maybe America ISN'T right ALL the time. maybe they DO bring troubles upon themselves. maybe the world ISN'T jealous and they only want our corporate money grubbers out of their back yards.
why not just admit you are blinded by flag waving? much like the nazi's were blinded by the swastika or the russians were with sovietism?

Bush = hitler. What an idiot.

i would like to see you and your family love an invading country and then wave their flag after 10,000 of your friends, family, neighbours and country-men (say in an area of ohhhh... california) get killed in something called OPERATION:AMERICAN FREEDOM. and the number keeps growing every day in nearly the teens.

The japanese liked us eventually, even though we nuked them twice.
Daniel Drezner has already dismantled the halliburton cronyism myth.

dear fiskingleftists, japan declared war on us and attacked us first. iraq did not. we went into iraq with a "pre-emptive" mind set, a no-no in the world community. the world was more understanding in retaliating against japan, but are not quite so understanding of just invading another country with very shaky reasonings and no solid proof. why not make a comparison using iranians and how the U.S. helped them get rid of their dictator by putting in the shaw? it might (we'll see) be a more appropriate comparison.

dear JFH, you post before anyone has refuted, i think you jumped the gun. and what i meant by "variety" is reading a variety of non-fiction and ficiton styles, if she had she would understand something so simple as a literary device that is narrating from the opposite view point and used facts and reason to dispute his article rather than resorting to attacking him for that particular style of writing. she (in this post only) reminds me of someone from 1939 who believed "war of the worlds" was a news report... despite all that plot and dialogue stuff that only got in the way of the real invasion. the only thing missing in her post is what happened when she called john ashcroft to report she has found an al-qeida operative. i just think it is a dangerous practice for one American to attack another American without something of substance to back it up. but that's just me.

dear John Q., you're post is backward. i am thinking that maybe having another oil source controled by American interests means they can still raise or lower prices at will, where as if iraqis where allowed total control the could sell on the world market at their own discretion, they could try to undercut other countries, and take money away from American oil companies. and thus lower prices which would "hurt" the American companies' stock prices. his point is that despite what happens the American consumer is the one that has no say in it at all. ("HEY!" i like that, very funny :)

and dear joe... joe joe joe, tsk tsk tsk,
quoting a left wing cartoon to defend a right wing post. for shame. i do believe that milo, opus and binkey would all take my side on this issue. maybe you should try reading garfield and work your way up? just a thought. (too mean? too harsh? but i'm right aren't i? bloom county leaned more often to the left it seemed.)

am i loser for using reason and logic and fact to dictate how i ponder over things instead of just party line responses? if thinking for yourself is horrible then i guess i am a loser.

but then again... what a loser "is" is subjective where as being an idiot is... well, you know what being an idiot is. so "know" need to explain. (again, is that too mean? too harsh? i don't know i hadn't planned on posting anything else. i'm new around these parts;) i only give back what i am given.

but anyway,
no offense to ANY of you, especially the host, y'all are cool. i look forward to reading much more than i ever post here. very nice readings.
thank you
have fun
>;

PF, you are forgetting that even a post war iraq will still have its production quotas set in Vienna by OPEC, not by the US or even its own provisional government. The overapplied "colonial" trope has especially limited traction in this instance. i also dont think Iraq's maximum 3mm bbl/day of production is nearly as significant as you seem to think. Rall is addicted to the "colonial" trope, insisting against all logic that an oil motive not only exists but that it governs foreign policy. Check out Ken Silversteins great takedown of Rall's gas pipeline theory in Counterpunch (of all places.) A concise, fact-based debunking of THAT unconvincing conspiracy theory.

Even if it contained any truth, Rall's argument is an ad hominem fallacy, addressing motive while failing utterly to counter the public rationale for the war.

alex - thanks, i always like to see other view points. it was an interesting article...

however, the article seems to be something of a red herring, or at least not very complete, or not very in depth in it's reasonings.

afghanistan has always been told to be a corridor to get oil (and/or gas - same thing in respect to the money it would make) over to the other side. iraq and afghanistan have always been sought for the control one would have if they could occupy those areas. it is the stuff generals have written about for centuries.

and i fail to see how his circular logic, that keeps coming back to afghanistan as being a pivital point in all his arguements agaisnt afghanistan, are to prove the conspiacy theorists wrong.

Ken Silverstein writes:
"In October of 1997, Ahmed Rashid -- who later became known for his book Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia -- authored a paper on the Unocal project for the Petroleum Finance Company, a private energy consulting firm. He wrote: "The future prospects of constructing the pipeline and mitigating the high risks involved depend almost entirely on relative stability in Afghanistan, which does not appear likely any time soon. ... Although the Taliban say they will guarantee security for foreign construction workers, nobody can actually guarantee security at this time in a country like Afghanistan. Thus, winning the Taliban's support or signing a contract with them would not be the end of the problems for any company, but just the beginning." "

since the taliban had already rejected the pipeline just prior to 9-11-01, and then the attacks happened (conspiracy theories of who actually orchistrated it aside of course), it would in fact look like the perfect opportunity to go in and create the stability needed for the pipeline to go through.

can you honestly say that pres. bush (who himself has admited he's not a reader or a long term thinker, and it has been shown they the admin has no concept of that area and it's people at all to predict anything) wouldn't believe that through bombing the enemy into submission(thus showing them who the real boss is in this world) and then having a puppet of America in charge there, wouldn't he believe that it would possibly give the stablitiy needed? since bush himself was convinced that bombing iraq would have all the iraqis worshiping the liberating American army. on paper it makes a lot of sense.

plus, add into it the fact that other countries knew of the pipeline long before before Americans ever even heard of the pipeline idea ( i talked to many australians who knew of the pipeline trying to go through long before i ever knew of such a thing let alone finally read about it in mainstream papers). and then when Americans heard about the pipeline theory the oil companies immediately told us that it was nothing more than a conspiracy tale and they had in fact decided not to build the pipe line... while at that very same moment they were still trying to build it, and were building it, as much of it as they could while the country tried to become stable. honesty in the 21st century seems to be worth the same as money with saddam's face on it.

the author also tries to deflect the thought of a pipeline conspiracy by saying the clinton administration dumped afghanistan to go across azerbaijan and georgia into turkey (forgetting that the clinton admin and the bush admin are two seporate animals). thus making the reader believe that afghanistan was no longer cared about, but then says that fell apart because azerbaijan discovered its own gas fields. so he just went around in a circle. but uses this circular logic that - even though he brought us back to afghanistan being crucial again - that this somehow proves that the conspiracy theory is wrong. when in fact all his facts so far keep leading us back to afghanistan.

and in fact the very next paragraph he talks of how unical was pushing hard to have a pipeline through afghanistan, but clinton fought against it over a british plan that skipped afghanistan.

this would in fact suggest that bush, being a complete oil man, would possibly go with his oil/energy buddies' (especially when you add in enron as a major player in all of this) plans compared to clinton who had no invested interest in any serious connections to the oil companies.

i also like the way he takes the oil companies' word for it that they have given up on the idea. because as we all know from enron, world com,global crossing and the likes, huge world companies only tell the truth when it it comes to what they do with their business and money.

" In some ways, the fall of the Taliban has been bad for American business interests. Nanay points out that the Taliban ruled most of Afghanistan and were trying to establish a strong central government. Today the warlords are back and the Karzai regime controls a far smaller slice of the country. "If bin Laden hadn't come along, we would have dealt with the Taliban," Nanay says. "Now there's a lot more insecurity and lawlessness." She adds that neither Caspian energy reserves nor control of Afghanistan were goals of the war, saying, "We didn't care about Afghanistan, we cared about bin Laden." "

if this were true then why were we dealing with the taliban right before 9/11/91? if we only cared about bin lauden then why didn't we get him when he was offered to us? (because the offer was to turn him over to a world court and not directly to us). and just because we didn't end up with the results we wanted doesn't mean the bush admin. wasn't willing to try, thinking it was a good idea at the time and that we'd ultimately have nothing to lose. if we go in under the pretext of getting bin lauden and takeing out the taliban - then no one would know the real reason behind it all. you have to admit that in theory it's the perfect smoke screen. or at least it would be a great oppertunity to kill two birds with one siege.

plus the whole enron scandal broke which bent a huge kink into the whole planning of the pipeline. funny how we cared so much about afghanistan when we first when in and as soon as enron fell through so did the whole afghanistan post war money that was promised to them.

so, after saying how we didn't care about afghanistan, we only wanted bin lauden, the author points out
"During a January 2002 visit to Afghanistan, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that U.S. companies should now consider investing in Afghanistan. "This country needs everything," he told reporters. "It needs a banking system. It needs a health-care system. It needs a sanitation system. It needs a phone system. It needs road construction. Everything you can imagine." To aid the reconstruction effort, the United States, Japan, Russia, Britain and other donors have pledged $1.3 billion. "

that doesn't sound like we didn't care to me.

plus the article leaves out one of the biggest players in most of the conspiracy theories... china. an enemy we support quite a lot. china is an untapped resource for money for a lot of big businesses. and they are ever in need of better services and better energy resources.

"A January 2002 Associated Press story quoted New York business analyst Jeffrey Rogers as saying he couldn't imagine any major corporation making a significant investment in Afghanistan. "It's just not the kind of risk anyone is prepared to take right now," he said. "I can't imagine they will take a risk like that for some time." "

but could he imagine America invading another country without any real reasons or evidence or proof to justify it?

again, this is thinking that the actual outcome is the same as the predicted outcome by the bush admin. and the energy companies that were trying to invest in the pipeline plans in the first place. since none of the actual outcomes have been what the bush admin had predicted it is a leap of faith to believe that this was the only one.

just because it hasn't worked out the way they thought it was going to (surprise, surprise) doesn't mean the orignal plans weren't leaning more towards what the conspiracy ideas are talking about. does it?

my only point in any of this is to not dismiss it whole heartedly. sure, chances are that it's all the way the bush admin. has been meant it to be more or less ( that the conspiracy plans are secondary at best, strike while the iron is hot and all that). but then again... the biggest injuries come from being blind sided, and the best con men seem like regular honest joes.

communism (and apparently so did nazism) looked great on paper... but it's when the right man in charge is allowed to do the wrong things for the "right" reasons that it all became clear what had really been going on... but by then it was too late. people dismissed winston churchill too when he was warning people about germany.

Nobody except a small group of local officials ever deemed a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan to be practical or a worthwhile concept. Feasibility studies are a dime a dozen. Enron's internal documents are all public now, and an Afghan project isnt mentioned once anywhere among the 1.5 million emails posted on FERCs website(Ive checked.) And natural gas IS utterly distinct from crude oil -- there being no clear market for turkmen gas piped to pakistan (reminder: enron's dobhal project was a flop), gas pipelines are especially vulnerable to sabotage and expensive to build and maintain, and gas is not an export commodity in that part of the world, and Omani and Qatari LNG is far cheaper, and the volumes under discussion are trivial... etc. Land wars are not waged in Asian hellholes in order to to make them safe for gas pipelines, sorry -- no bank or energy multinational would ever sign off on a risk of that sort with no clear cut financial motive, and there is NONE, ZERO, ZIP.

Enron is the worst red herring ever -- here is a company that is IN BANKRUPTCY, a failure that bankrupted many Houstonian friends of dubya, that they could still be held accountable for international intrigue of this magnitutde, when their own accountants can take them for such a ride is just absurd.

Rall himself happily concedes it will never be built (but clings against all evidence to the idea that the scrapped unocal project animated the entire Afghan invasion. In all the publicly cited reasons for invading Afghanistan seem eminently more plausible than any commercial reason -- and the same applies to Iraq. Oil companies traditionally don't mind doing business with the Saddams of the world. They dont need to buy invasions to make money in the third world, they just grease the local oligarchs; see Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Angola etc etc etc. Support for Israel pisses off the arabs and costs the texas guys money. Saudi pliability has always been compromised by and is at odds with US/Israeli support.

Bottom line, the idea that the US is in the Middle East for its natural resources is obvious and uninteresting. That it steers policy in the direction claimed by Rall and his ilk is manifestly illogical and untrue.

On the topic of pre-emption: Saddam went into Kuwait and Iran with a preemptive mindset; Im sure the same applied when his troops were massed on the Saudi border in 98. He also violated numerous terms of the 91 cease fire again and again and again. Preemption and international law are in the eye of the beholder i guess.

Nobody is claiming that Bush or the GOP are a bunch of choirboys, or that they don't carry water for a lot of business interests. But claiming those interests steer Mideast policy is both counterfactual and counterintuitive. Most importantly, they are IRRELEVANT to the argument for or against war. If the left can't come to grips with the public justification for Mideast military engagement (an argument i believe was made quite cogently and persuasively) they are left grasping at weak ad hominems like gas pipelines that even they concede will never be built.

i've never heard anyone on the left use the gas pipeline as anything for the war. only conspiratorial people are trying ot add it to the mix as more evidence that these wars aren't what they are claimed to be. but it's never been any where near a front runner in the conversation. any leftist who is still talking about the gaspipeline is the same as any rightnutjob who is still talking about clinton.

i do believe the major talk from the left is that ALL the evidence to invade another country "pre-emptively", which is a no-no in the cviilized world, were pure fabrications by a president who is either a major liar or just inept. so... if the reasons for war were not real or correct then what was the real reason? or was there none? was bush honest in his wants but stupid in his narrow mindedness?

were the iraqis enmassed on the saudi boarder in '98 like they were in '91 when fake satalite pictures were taken and offered as another reason ot go to warthe first time?(which was proven to be a fake when russian satalites took pictures at the same time and place and saw nothing there). or were they enmassed like they were when they went into kuwait and dumped babies on the cold, cold ground and stole the incubators? another lie that was told before the first gulf war (by the same people who are in this administration, i might add).

and by the way, not only was saddam beaten this time by clinton's army but he was thoroughly beaten down by clinton in the late 90's with "operation: desert fox" in which we really enforced the boarders and we destroyed weapons factories when our intelligence found them.

AND if saddam was so bad and such a threat why did colin powel in early 2001 give a speech to the world that saddam was no longer a threat to his neighbours or the world? (a speech that was, and may still be, on the government's own web site.)

so between early 2001 and late 2002 he became a threat again?

and if all the rightwingers have to offer in the debate of "war or no war" is "he's a bad man"... weeeellll, there are many, many other dictators out there who are actually worse than saddam, who have killed more people for less reasonings, and whose people are being repressed far worse than iraqis ever have been. and if iraqis were surpressed do badly why are they pretty modern people by middle eastern standards?
so why not start at the top of the list of evil? or at least why expect to stop in iraq then if our goal is liberation and democracy for the repressed of the world? what makes iraq so special that we had to liberate them over any other country?

and all the nightmares that the left had warned about are happening now. that iraqis wouldn't jsut fall in love with americans, that they aren't going ot liek an occupation, that it will stir up other terrorist groups into action, that those on the fence will be brainwashed easier as they are told this is proof of the "great satan's trying to take over", that if we go in there is no easy way out because without saddam's iron fist or without the U.S. military keeping the peace afterwards the shiites and sunnis could start a civil war and the civilians and the kurds will get crushed in the middle, that a pre-emptive strike will cast a shadow on america as seen by other countries even if it were to work out for the best.

i really don't think many americans find out the facts of the big picture before they pick a side or argue their case.
now bush is considering pulling out of iraq so he looks good before the elections.

he was so cocky that he was right that America is going ot look weak if we leave, and he was so confidant that god told him to invade afghanistan and iraq... is he going to go against god's words just for some human votes? if god didn't want american soldiers to die he wouldn't have told bush to send them in, right?
but then again bush is being extremely wishy washy (clinton was called a waffle, remember that?) on what he's going to do next. should he stay or should he go?

i dunno.

how could saddam break any major treaty terms when our miltary was there bombing him?

bush talking about bringing troops home (just a few months after trying to get more sent and quietly talking about the reinstating the draft) but this talks of possible civil war if we leave - http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/18/1069027122315.html

here are some of the lies told by the same people who are in the administration now - (sorry i don't have a link to the 60 minute story) -

http://www.socialistworker.org/2003-1/437/437_04_GulfWarLies.shtml

http://www.whodies.com/lies_gulf_war.html

this one might be a little too leftist for you but it still shows the lies:
http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html

http://www.independent.org/tii/news/030105Marshall.html

and of course FAIR:
http://fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/gulf-war-not-true.html

and before you try to say "it was other people not us who told the lies, we were duped."
let me say, we are the greatest country in the world with the greatest intelligence in the world and we didn't know these were lies???? come on!!! they knew and they promoted it. they hadtoknow. are you telling me our intelligence couldn't find out that the girl who was an eye witness wasn't even there at the time? how pathetic is that?

oh and by the way,
we helped saddam try to go into iran and called him our ally, that was ok, but when he went into kuwait (were they slant drilling into his oil? never proven beyond just accusations) that was bad.

so realistically, pre-emptive invasions are all in who your allies are at the time. nothing more.

PF, I agree the pipeline is a sideshow -- if only fruitcakes are prosecuting it, then we agree on what to call Ted Rall, and Gore Vidal, and a few other prominent voices on the left. This thread's about Rall, right?

Right-wingers are certainly not the only ones pushing the Iraq war; i refer you to Paul Berman and Christopher Hitchens as two of the more outspoken and articulate left wingers who have endorsed the war. Talking about how dumb most Americans are, how they are duped by some lobby or another, doesnt serve your own cause very well -- do you honestly believe yourself to be better informed on matters of state than Condi Rice, or Paul Wolfowitz? That's who's setting policy -- not the poor ignorant fools you think populate America. Your beef is with them and what they say, not what you think Joe Sixpack has been talked into by FOX. More worthless ad hominem.

The very same people on GWB's defense policy board were there during the Clinton years, Clinton himself endorsed the war, no surprise as "regime change" not containment has been US policy since the Iraq Liberation Act passed in 1998. Good for Clinton for containing Saddam to the extent he did -- I'm not in competition with or hostile to all of Clinton's policies and neither are many other republicans.

Saddam cinched things for me when he barred the first round of inspectors from entering his "palaces" in 1994(?) - -I would have endorsed a full invasion then. I read the terms of the cease fire and he was in violation of them, period, end of story. I saw it with my own eyes -- the WMD and human rights issues are real but secondary. I could also care less that we once supported Iran, or Iraq, or any other shitheap dictatorship; foreign policy is forward directed, policies change, enemies become allies (former allies have on occasion radicalized and become hostile to the US with no prodding -- see Bin Laden, who once happily accepted our aid), it speaks to nothing sinister -- no nation in the history of the world has ever pursued a monolithic foreign policy - no such thing exists. Stalin was our ally in WWII, so what? Exactly how did we help Iraq go into Iran? By supplying them with weapons? the Soviets, the French and the Germans are far worse in this regard. The debts owed to these countries by the Saddam regime are a direct consequence of their Iran-era armament deals. Would you have left him in place as a client of western arms manufacturers, trading Iraqi mineral wealth for Russian SCUDs, German Roland tanks, and French Exocet missiles and Mirage fighters ??

"do you honestly believe yourself to be better informed on matters of state than Condi Rice, or Paul Wolfowitz? That's who's setting policy -- not the poor ignorant fools you think populate America."
yes, yes i do think i am more informed since these people kept telling us he had WMD, that every aluminum pipe, every hydrogen truck, every yellow cake crumb was proof of WMD. when at the very same time i knew they weren't from many different sources. i go behind the main stream news.
since i knew that the IAEA report bush quoted from that said saddam had his nuclear weapons program going again was a report that didn't exist, and niether rice nor wolfowiz noe powell nor rumsfeld stopped to say "don't quote that it doesn't exist"
i can honestly say, now that you make me think of it, that i do know more than they do. since i doubt even they know the report doesn't exist otherwise they would have made a retraction and readvise their rheteric.
since no one stopped colin powell from sitting in front of the UN and reading false reports and inaccurate information. i can honestly say that if i were in any of their positions i would not i ngood conscious have been able to read those things. especially after a year or two earlier i saw the real reports amd information that said saddam was no longer a threat.
so, yes, it is quite possible that i do know, or at the very least WOULD HAVE known better than they do.

and let's not forget that all government are liars and have their own agendas that we may or may not know about. and given all the falsehoods, lies and spins this administration has done it's good odds that they have more going on then jsut the liberation of iraqis and a fake war against terra'.
never trust a man who lies about the biggest national tragedy in decades just to make himself look good. and by that i mean bush when he lied about how he found out about the attacks on 9-11.

and i do think i am better informed than joe sixpack who only listens to right wing radio and then votes in the guy who brings in the likes of rice and wolfowitz.

plus what makes you think these people know what they are doing? they were brought in by a man who doesn't know what he's doing. and a man who is a liar. birds of a feather? wolfowitz is such a good guy he resigned as chairman so there wouldn't be a scandel... but he's still there and still in charge. is that ethical? was he really telling the truth then? they follow the direction of the man who brought them in, a man who has told us to support the troops, who has infered that being against the war is akin to treason "you're either for us or against us" yet, while the troops are still fighting and dying he has cut their pay, cut their family seporation pay, cut the food benefits to the family back home, cut medical and psychological benefits for veterans, has made wounded soldiers in the hospital pay for their own food, is that the right things to do during a war? all the while not even considering asking halliburton to cut their pay or offering them less money now for future benefits. and no one has challenged this move, not rice, wolfowitz, not even powell. is this how YOU would support the troops since you believe in the war so much, do you agree with this kind of treatment?

it's the poor ingorant fools that get talked into their beliefs by FOX and the right wingnut radio show hosts that vote these people into office and will probably vote them back into office without ever realising that these people aren't doing what they are supposed to be doing... which is taking care of the interests of all the American people whether they voted for them or not.

regime change has always been policy. true. but that doesn't make war the right way to go about it. there are plenty of other ways that haven't even been tried to be thought of. it's always been sanctions and war. and all we can do as citizens is speculate because we have no idea what our leaders have thought of or tried to think of and they wouldn't tell us anyway.
i don't think saddam

why not just attack all countries and change the name from "earth" to "Planet America"?

now i have a few questions about the first article.

"the UN's Office of the Iraq Programme shows that French businesses have supplied Iraq with equipment that can be used for uranium enrichment and nuclear warhead triggers. "

wouldn't this go against the U.N.'s own restrictions for iraq? I mean if this were true, and i suspect that it's half right with propaganda spin on it. such as using the words "that can be used", but like i say if this were true then why wouldn't ANY nation step up, especially America and stop it under the restrictions? if medical supplies can be halted because "they could be used" to make chemical weapons, then why wouldn't those same restrictions apply to nuclear weapons programs in iraq? something is missing because it doesn't add up. and why didn't the bush admin point this out right away? you would think this would be one of the first facts used to show Americans and the UN that saddam has weapons.or at the very least proof that there is a program going on because they have these supposed items. but in fact it is legal under the restrictions saddam is still allowed to have weapons to protect himself from invading by his neighbours. haha, the joke was on him.

you would think that since these UN records are so easily obtained, colin powell would have known about them and known the threat of them when he dilivered his 2001 speech to the world that saddam was no longer a threat to anyone. wouldn't you? the CIA and Military Intelligence would be keeping an eye on this and have informed powell before he gave the speech, added it into their equation when they came up with the fact that saddam was no longer a threat. logically speaking.
since it wold factor in heavily on whether saddam was a threat in the future to anyone or not. which as the report concluded... he was not.
they wouldn't have lsited him as no longer a threat if he still had the possiblity of having nukes or chemicals availuble within 6 months like the bush admin tried to claim i nthe beginning. instead the report concluded... saddam was no longer a threat to his neighbours or the world.

did i meantion they already knew he was no longer a threat to anyone in 2001?

also, france isn't trying to condemn a country they do business with. and i have no idea if they deny or hide the fact they do business with iraq.

America during the iraq-iran war not only supplied them with the weapons, taught them how to use it, but also gave them satalite directions to help pin point the targets. andthe American government hypocrisy comes in when the bush admin uses "he gassed his own people" as a reason he's so bad when we were the ones who helped him gas his own people, knew about it, and continued to do business with him afterward. with no acknowledgement that America did anything wrong.
if it wasn't a big deal then, then don't bring it up as evidence now. you can't buy someone drugs and then say that person should be in prison for doing drugs. do you see? and it's the same people in the white house now that was in it then, cheney, rumsfeld, wolfawitz etc etc etc

if i way digress from your article for a moment:
if i may quote from mickey z @ http://www.counterpunch.org/mickey02282003.html
i know it's counterpunch, and you are probably rolling your eyes but here goes...

" Hussein has used chemical weapons and even gassed "his own people." The current debate ignores some relevant points: ¤On March 5, 1984, State Department spokesperson John Hughes addressed Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran: "The United States strongly condemns the prohibited use of chemical weapons wherever it occurs." ¤By year's end, the US had established full diplomatic relations with Iraq for the first time since 1967. ¤Six months after that, the Reagan administration authorized the sale to Iraq of 45 dual-use, US-made Bell helicopters. ¤Former Iraqi officer, General al-Shamari, told Newsweek that he was in charge of firing chemical weapons from howitzers against Iranian troops, and that US satellite information provided the targeting information. A former CIA official confirmed to Newsweek that the US provided military intelligence to Iraq, including on chemical warfare. General al-Shamari now lives safely in the U.S., running a restaurant outside of Washington DC ¤The US and UK continued support for Hussein after the gassing of the Kurds at Halabja in 1988 ¤One possible reason for this support: 24 US corporations supplied Iraq with nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile technology, prior to 1991. The list includes Honeywell, Rockwell, Hewlett Packard, Dupont, Eastman Kodak, and Bechtel. "

did france do anything like this? do they condemn saddam and what he does with the things they sell him while continueing to deal with him? i don't know. it's probably likely since all governments, as i've said, are liars. but i would like to know some real facts before i write it in stone.

back to the france article:

as i've said, france isn't dealing in things that are WMD, they are dealing with conventional self defense weaponry.

"If America is so bad and hypocritical for profiting off and funding Iraq in the '80s, why isn't France held accountable for its historic and ongoing military support of Iraq?"
because they aren't bitching about him and going against international law. Plus the spin here is ignoring all the other countries and dictators that America is still funding, we funded the taliban right up until 9-11. so it's hypocritical to say one country is bad for supporting a dictator when your own country is supporting two or more other dictators.

"More important, if it's so bad that the U.S. supported Hussein, isn't it more honorable for the U.S. to challenge Hussein now--rather than, à la France, continuing to make money off Hussein through arms sales? After all, hasn't the revered international community passed resolution after resolution to disarm Hussein's belligerent regime? "
there are two problems here, one it would be except it's the same people in charge now in the U.S. who had no trouble supporting him back then, and it is also ignoring the facts that the bush admin is making up false accusation as an excuse to invade another country. framing a guilty man is still a frame. and framing someone, innocent or guilty is just plain bad and unethical. you frame one person then how do we know if the next one is a frame or not? how far will it go? it's a slippery slope as the right wing likes to say about drugs, homo-weddings, and anything else they are against.

the second problem here is that all those resolution actual worked, since saddam had no ties to terrorist, he had no WMD, he was deemed anot a threat in 2001, he was allowing inspectors to do their job (with in reason, you can't expect him to just bend over and spread his cheeks, he has a lot of pride and to keep order needs to be seen as having some power left,plus i doubt you would let your enemies who are talking about invading you to come in an totally disarm you. admit it. you would hide some of your things from the police if you thought they were going to falsly accuse you and arrest you after they took everything away, or were looking for any little thing to arrest you)

one more thing about this whole france thing. it was the right who started the whole freedom fries and anti-french neamed things. wwhich you haveto admit is as childish as trying to drag the pipeline into any real iscussion on the war in iraq.
the pipeline whether it was a reason or not for going into afghanistan, is past and it wasn't the only reason (if the conspiracy is true) for going into afghanistan (which i never understood why clinton let the camps stay in there after bin lauden made the most wanted list, we knew about them long ago, so it makes no sense) since there was a legitamate reason to attack al-qeida camps after they took responsiblity for the twin towers.

which would be funny if they really didn't do it but said they did just for the plublicity. suckers!!!!

my position stand. bush is a liar, and going into iraq was the wrong thing to do. the admin didn't have any understanding of that part of the world, they went in thinking a) getting rid of saddam would make them saints and b) using huge brute force and strength would make the enemy hide under the bed in fear "shock and awe"

but those who knew the area said it from the beginning (and some of what ralls said in his article are true to a point) that they aren't going to be cowed into submission, and the irais would be grateful but would not stand to be treated like children, and that it ran a big risk that it would give fuzzy proof to what the terrorist's rpopaganda... taht America is the great satan bent on conquering and destroying islam. and going in and killing innocent civilians and saying it's for their own good isn't going to look good in a lot of poeple's eyes, especially if all our reasons for going in didn't hold up to scrutiney.

sure saddam was a bad man, not the worst out there, but a bad man. but so what? bush is an idiot, does that give other countries a right to interfere with your life? it's one thing to deliver retribution for something that actually happened, but it's another to just go into a country because you think it's best.

then you must agree with the terrorists yourself, right? they have jsut as legitamate reasons for bombing us as we do for going into iraq. from their propaganda view. look at all the horrible things America has done here and abroad. it's all in the view of the propaganda you grow up with... which is what ted ralls tried to do was show people that Americans aren't the only ones in the world who think, and can come up with reasons why, they are the ones who are right.

thank you
and thanks, it's been a lot of fun. you really make me think and work hard to make my view sound reasonable. i apreciate you playing with me like this. you are a real nice guy and make some good points. AND have the links to back it up. i like that. so many people jsut go something along the lines of "you're wrong and stupid"... ummm, ok, why? tell me where i'm wrong and i'll consider it, that;s all i ask, jsut consider a different point of view and hopefully we'll find middle ground somewhere. i like to learn.

i will have to read the princeton report later.
i'll check back here to read your review of my thesis here. haha
and if you don't want to continue that's fine too.
it's all jsut stretching our minds anyway, right? like you say, we don't know ALL the facts since we aren't allowed in the board rooms or access to the real reports. and we don't makethe final decisions on the end anyway - well, except when we can vote.

a lot of fun none the less
it was really nice to meet you.
take care, alex
cheers :)
p.f.

oh let me clarify one thing.
i don't really think i know more than them (rice,powell etc etc etc), i was being facetious.

but they don't act like they know anymore than anyone else does.
they should be professionals and tell the truth when they can and when they can't they should say so,"no comment, i can't go into that right now for security reasons, or we are still working on that..." ...or whatever the real reason is that they can't talk about something.

doesn't that seem like the more honest and caring way to deal with things? instead of always spinning and lying and decieving?

wouldn't it just be a much better country then?
of course who cares about making it a better country when we can all just sit back and let the same bullshit happen over and over and over and...

I didn't know who this Ted Rall was until I saw this, but I must say, if he makes conservatives so pissed off, he must be a decent sort. And from what I see, he seems to be a man of some sense. I mean, some of the guys here seem to be your typical "YAAAH America" yahoos who think Sean Hannity should be the next president of the USA. You know, the America "can do no wrong" dimwit crowd that really, really pisses off intelligent people everywhere.